About Heather Taves

Concert pianist Heather Taves brings her “radiantly beautiful, commanding and authoritative” artistry to audiences everywhere, as she connects with openness and humour to share musical worlds. An internationally respected classical artist, she is preparing the complete cycle of 32 Sonatas by Beethoven for completion in 2024. Heather shares this process in her entertaining blog “Beethoven Journey” at https://heathertaves.substack.com/

Gifted in multiple genres, Heather showcases her gifts as improvisor, composer, and writer. She is composing music for an event titled Painted Dances, joining forces with the popular Propeller Dance Company which includes wheelchair dancers, artist Julea Boswell, and emerging filmmaker Aaron Daniels Casey. As an improvisor, she plays keyboard in the Scott Parsons Band which presents stories of Black history to communities large and small. She has performed music by diverse living composers such as Israeli composer Oded Zehavi, Palestinian-Canadian composer John Kameel Farah, Turkish composer Can Kazaz, and British jazz pianist Julian Joseph.  Her vision is to share music in all its diverse facets as a powerful force to bring people together.

A composer says…

“Many thanks to Heather Taves for the great Makro!”

  • —George Crumb

Reviews

“An extraordinary evening of highly memorable new music…a masterful combination of recorded sounds, solo improvisations, and tasteful ensemble chemistry…Taves was also brilliant in her conjuring of diverse worlds of sound and texture…this was superlative music for our time and beyond.”

  • —Stephen Preece, for The Record
“Taves’ execution of the tightly wound jazz-influenced piano part alongside an electronic rhythm track in Farah’s “Uprising” was a knock-out thing of dazzling beauty and non-stop swinging energy all the way to its inspired end.”

  • —Today’s Zaman, Turkey
“It was the sheer musicality of everything she did which provided such a deep impression – the light and shade, the subtlety of color and phrasing, the variety of rhythmic stress, all made to serve the musical sense.”

  • —The Telegraph-Journal
“A radiantly beautiful performance…commanding and authoritative, with the proper virtuosic display this music calls for”

  • The Guardian (Canada)
“More than just transmitting virtuosity, [the trio] also communicated tradition, experience, contact, and communication.”

  • —La Nacion (Costa Rica)
“Superb, technically and interpretively…Taves has a definite talent for understanding and communicating the rationale of modern music.”

  • —Colleen Johnson, for The Record
“She possesses the necessary technique, and the musical spark in abundance…these Heather Taves achieved to perfection.”

  • The Nelson Daily
“Some of the most beautiful music that I have ever heard…during both the slow, ethereal passages and the incredibly rapid ones…I was just glad that I couldn’t see her hands from where I was sitting. I might never have recovered.”

  • —The Brock Press

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